


war of gods.

by dysfunctionxl



Series: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dream Team SMP Setting (Video Blogging RPF), Angel of Death Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Author Is Not Religious, Author is a Clay | Dream Apologist (Video Blogging RPF), BAMF Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Technoblade Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), Deity Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Deity Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Good Friend Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Good Sibling Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP Spoilers (Video Blogging RPF), Morally Ambiguous Character, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Religious Imagery – Freeform, Sad Parental Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), i did research on the four horsemen and tried to follow it lmao, personal interpretation of the four horsemen pls don't come at me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysfunctionxl/pseuds/dysfunctionxl
Summary: there are gods among men, and there are the horsemen.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF) & Original Character(s)
Series: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162934
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	war of gods.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a petition to watch this stream:  
> https://www.twitch.tv/grayl1ghts 
> 
> pls :D don't gotta follow or actually watch even, just checking it out even would be cool :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> introducing the horsemen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh ok so two chapters were supposed to come out a week and three days ago and not at 3am but texas had a winter storm then i made this triple the intended length so no :D  
> disclaimer: this is incredibly freeform interpretation of the horsemen, the only thing that my research found was basically they're symbols of an oncoming apocalypse but i gave them powers and shit so it'd advance the story and also because i view them as incarnations/champions of gods or just gods. this is in no way a bibically accurate representation of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, it's not intended to be religiously accurate, please don't come for me :D
> 
> do NOT show this to the cc's without permission. some of the creators in here have said that they are uncomfortable with it being shoved into their faces, and we need to respect that.

There are gods among men, and there are the horsemen. 

Phil Watson is Death. 

Everyone knows this. The pitch black wings marked the power of a god, omnipotent and indestructible. His reputation precedes him, tales of blood and massacres reaching through kingdoms and empires. It seems impossible to defeat him (because it is), but luckily, Death never chooses sides, and neither does Phil.

Corruption could never touch Death incarnate (as if absolute power has never corrupted). Bodies lay in his wake, souls absorbed into a black blade. The demands of Death, of Hades and Pluto and Hela, weighs on his mind, souls screaming for freedom from the blade. Death has never been a kind sight, and Phil Watson bears witness to the worst. 

Black wings train War and Conquest and the world trembles in fear of the 1st Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Phil Watson also raises a family. He picks up kids from his travels, watches them grow (and die to their own father's power) and pass over the years. This part has always been the hardest, outliving one's children, maybe the worst part of his job. He travels, trying to escape the screams of loved ones as Grayson and Technoblade whip through the land. As always, he is dragged back, the will of a power unseen to him controlling his duty (the Horseman is the first to try and escape Fate).

He travels, desperately, to find the potential where he is free from the burden of Death. Once, he tries to take mercy, bargains, claiming plants and life and anything but another child, and he pays for it. Instead, he is forced to plunge his sword through his own flesh and blood ( _History repeats itself)._

History screams as Death alters time itself. 

And as all of the Horsemen do, Phil Watson suffers. 

Technoblade is War. 

He fights like a storm, blade swinging in a deadly dance as he fends off four attackers (but every god has a weakness. even war). As warriors tire around him, his power only grows. The blood splatters on his cape or his crown never seem to truly wash off. War, trained by Death himself, is terrifying. His capabilities constantly change, adapting and shaping as war remakes itself to be deadlier. He gains the title of the Blood God through wars and kills, long before Phil or Grayson ever found him.

Simon Hypixel's tournament gets Technoblade his crown and a body count to match. Hypixel uses him for years before the light appears, before Phil and Grayson track down the Third Horseman and bring him back (and raise him.) As he grows, the world develops, and he witnesses the advancement of war into genocides and assimilation and pain. It's early on that Technoblade figures out why Phil and Grayson sometimes disappear for days, never leaving him alone to keep him distracted, but he knows. Technoblade has always been clear-sighted, at least before the voices came back with a vengeance. 

The voices demand blood. 

Hypixel ignored Technoblade's responses to his voices, as long as he was fighting and _winning_ it wasn’t important. Grayson and Phil come for him at 15, when his body count is 5 times his age and he knows nothing else but blood. They don’t tell him he’s War, but Technoblade lost his childhood innocence long ago and he figures out that they’re Death and Famine and he’s definitely not significant enough to be randomly picked up ( _he is to them, but 15-year-old Technoblade doesn’t know that_ ) so he must be related to them in some way.

It’s not until he’s 17 and wakes up sweating from flashes of a war the humans are waging that they tell him, he’s the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse, the incarnation of War. 

His experience, both in the Arena and outside of it, has scarred him. Governments bringing their nations into war after war, a netherite blade piercing through the cracks in diamond armour, and Technoblade witnesses the deaths of thousands overlapping the screams of Simon Hypixel’s Arena. The voices of those victim to his domain (children) ring out in his head, complaining, demanding, screaming for blood. His self-control is unparalleled, everyone thinks.

It gets lonely sometimes, stuck in his own head with nothing but the voices to accompany him. He tries not to think about the pain he causes, the near destruction of entire countries, the pain that ripples through his family. 

The wars humans wage on behalf of their nation has ripped apart his parents' minds. Dream and Technoblade try to turn a blind eye to how Phil and Grayson suffer through the days (it's not like they'll let them do anything anyways). It's on a particularly bad day, when he can hear his mother Grayson crying in the other room, that Technoblade decides governments have caused his family too much pain, that if his power does this he doesn’t want it, that maybe if he destroys them they won’t be in this never-ending torture. 

And so starts his crusade. 

Dream is Conquest and Pestilence. 

The double name weighs more heavily on Dream as compared to the other Horsemen. He sees both the results of conquerors and diseases, and he struggles with it. The youngest one has had the least time to adapt, the stinging pain of death hanging over him doubly. Pestilence is particularly destructive to Dream, the diseased-wracked bodies passing through his mind everyday. He considers himself to be lucky though, disease isn’t as prominent as famine or war or death ( _Modern Conquest hurts him more than anything else, though)_.

When it happens though, he’s devastated. The first time a major disease strikes the human world, it’s weeks before Dream stops screaming at night. Grayson stays up with him, talking him through the night as Dream shakes from the nightmares. They can both distantly hear Phil talking with Technoblade, also awake from the nightmares ( _He wonders what Techno and him would have done without them)._

Even with the best efforts by his parents, the nightmares plague his days and he does his best not to lose his mind. After he runs away at 13 ( _plagued by his own powers and with nothing to lose),_ the only comfort he’d been able to find was a kind sheep-woman named Puffy ( _not the same as Grayson, but she gave a different kind of comfort he loved all the same_ ).

By the time he returns home, Sapnap and George are just happy to see him, and Phil and Grayson say nothing but pull him into a tight hug ( _When he’d left he’d thought that they both loved Technoblade a little more, but he sees now. The emotion they pour into the hug convey more than they could ever say. After all, they’d never been good with words.)_

Grayson and Phil had found him earlier than they did Technoblade, it being the second time around now. Like they’d done with his brother, they don’t tell Dream he’s ( _Conquest_ ) Pestilence until he figures it out. It’s a little earlier than Technoblade, since Dream has always been adept with others’ emotions and it doesn’t take an expert to see _something_ is causing the darkened circles under his families’ eyes.

He’s devastated when he finds out, considering he often nursed sick animals back to health, compassion clearly inherited from Grayson. For months ( _years, actually)_ Dream desperately begs Phil and Grayson for an escape, any way he’d be able to reject this role forced upon him. 

Instead, they are forced to tell him that he’s Conquest. 

Somehow, this information hurts him more. Neither Phil nor Grayson could help, their experience ( _millenia older than Technoblade and himself)_ too detached to provide any real comfort. Instead, the first time he wakes up from nightmares of murder by conquerors ( _Genghis Khan is particularly deadly_ ), Technoblade is already by his side. Their domains share many of the same aspects, meaning many of the images that flashed through Dream’s mind while asleep did the same for Technoblade. 

Like he does with his parents, Dream clings to Technoblade for the rest of the night. 

Grayson is Famine. 

They are born at the beginning of time, when the first animal falls. Time weighs heavily on them, the sight of shriveled bodies wracked with the devastation of hunger a grisly sight to see. Phil meets them after the first century, when they’ve stopped aging at 30 and in their absolute prime.

Ironically, they hate each other initially, but neither can deny friendship when the only other constant would ever be the other person. Especially as the centuries go by, the nightmares become more and more frequent, and they find some form of comfort in each other. They aren’t lovers, but the constant presence of the other is comforting as they see their loved ones wither away. Grayson is tired of it, the repetition that only serves to remind her of her immortality. 

They learn from their years. 

First, she learns the comfort she can bring.

The first few times she appears to a frail figure curled up on the ground, she’s not totally sure how to act. She says nothing, rather sitting down beside the half-dead person and covering them with a large white wing. Grayson’s magic is not enough to save the poor soul, but she, at least, knows she can provide some feignance of relief as they pass. The first few times, she thinks it’s relatively tame, compared to some of the horrors she’d been at Phil’s side for. 

Later on, she becomes experienced, forcing herself to develop a routine and a semblance of a kind soul. They aren’t an angel, far from it, but they know well enough that taking on the resemblance of one would be… appealing. Now, they don flowing white attire, detailed with gold, taking on the persona of a god as they lead another to their death.

The voices trapped in their blade whisper to them, a constant reminder of the root cause of her kindness. They’re somewhat lucky, they suppose, the voices in her head and her blade have never been that loud ( _in the first century, they aren’t_ ). 

Second, they learn of dangerous abilities ( _Starvation not only of food, rather starvation of the mind.)_

They rarely ever use them, at least generally not by choice. Grayson has always been the most compassionate out of the Four Horsemen, an unfortunate consequence of innocence making up the large part of her domain. The first time that they figure it out, they cause a stroke.

It was mercy, painless, but it’d shaken them to their core. At that moment, they’d realized that Famine extended far beyond the simple idea of starving. They realize that they can take away emotion, they can take away blood, they can take away _anything_ that could’ve been classified as starvation. In some ways, this makes them the most powerful Horseman. 

There aren’t many things that Grayson and Phil keep from each other, but this is one ability they know they need to keep to themselves. In that moment, the charade begins, as white wings bat against frozen air, as black wings soar towards an unnatural death.

Later, Grayson will tell Phil that they were in Vietnam, studying their work spreading across the country. They don’t let their voice waver, don’t let their eyes wonder, but they do allow themselves to fiddle slightly with the edge of their cloak. The voices of those they kill are particularly loud, clamoring for freedom in her blade and in her mind. 

Third, they learn the extent of their influence.

Initially, they’d thought that famine had been less extensive than war or pestilence or death. Four years after Technoblade joins them, they find out that they’re subject to so much more. Starvation during war is particularly brutal, as bloodied bodies wracked with hunger wither away. They aren’t forced to lead those into the afterlife, but their presence is demanded. Although they stay out of it, Technoblade engages in the fray, while Grayson chooses to remain unseen.

Their protegé hasn’t quite experienced the death that they have, centuries worth outweighing the devastation he’d caused as a young child. It allows them to reflect on the brutality of their life, how their family has been doomed to a cycle of death and rebirth. Some form of acceptance had long been formed between the trio, a bond of unity between three immortals.

Last, she learns the value of her family.

Neither her nor Phil are particularly adept with arts and crafts, but they travel a lot and they pick up little trinkets for each other. Grayson finds them matching heart pins in Japan, complete with engravings ( _it’s symbolic –– the Horsemen can never die of old age, but falling in battle has always been entirely possible)_ . Phil picks up a pair of matching rapiers in France, giving one to Grayson. Although the weapon is not Phil’s preferred choice ( _swords are better weighted for him_ ), Grayson quickly adds it to their central weapons. 

When Dream and Technoblade come around, they want an item to tie them together as well. Both Dream and Technoblade pick up the rapier as well, duel-wielding with a sword as Grayson did. Even after the younger ones join them, Phil and Grayson continue their tradition. Dream is ecstatic when Phil returns with 4 pairs of matching fingerless gloves, designed to improve their hold on weapons.

On one of their longer trips out, Grayson and Technoblade stop by a small shop on the side of the road. They carry an ethereal aura, one that makes the cashier reel back slightly as Technoblade fixes him with a harsh glare. A white porcelain mask with a crudely drawn smile, a royal red cape, a striped green and white had, and a small jewel-encrusted brooch are taken from the shop. ( _Later on, in a different world, Famine and War will reflect on this trip as an enchanted netherite rapier is held at a throat)_.

The Horsemen always appear together. 

Before Dream and Technoblade came along, Phil and Grayson appeared in tandem, Hunger and Starvation always accompanied by Death. After? Grayson and Dream appear in Europe, bringing a famine and disease to the nations. Technoblade watches China and Britain go to war, and Phil stays with Dream as Europe scrambles for Africa.

It is the natural order of things, just as Grayson, Dream, Technoblade, and Phil bring devastation, the world reforms and remakes itself. They observe from afar as the humans destruct, doing their best to reverse the effects of fate. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse mold the future of this timeline, history changing itself as they make decisions of life and death. They’re oblivious to the affect they have on the timeline –

~~A white building imbued with magic whispers into the ears of a warrior of time.~~

– because even time is beyond the eyes of Gods.

...

...

...

Right?

_-[unreadable]_

~~No, no it isn't. Beyond gods, maybe, but the Horsemen are not gods. Death and Famine can see all the possibilities. It's a special power, one that still gives them hope for a society that has abandoned it long ago.~~

~~A world where Famine no longer collects payment, where Death's blade is no longer imbued with the souls of the pure. It lets them see the empires that could have been (blood red has always been Technoblade's favourite colour, no matter what timeline), the death and the hunger that sweeps the land.~~

~~Death sees a world where the dinosaurs never died. Famine knows a world where a country prospers, their history erased through the power of choice. The infinite timelines at their disposal shows them possibilities and the consequences of their actions. Some worlds, they tear apart – Fate is not kind to defiant ones.~~

~~It’s destructive, really.~~

~~At least War and Conquest have never figured this part out.~~

~~But Fate demands it, and so it shall be.~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a lot sadder than it was supposed to be lmao
> 
> a couple of notes on this chapter:  
> 1\. grayson is my own character, but i did intentionally make their description vague so it could be left open to interpretation what famine is supposed to look like :) the only solid details i have of grayson beyond their placement in the story is that grayson goes by she/they LMAO 
> 
> 2\. i don't know if it's entirely clearly communicated but grayson and phil have been around since like,, the dawn of time (in this timeline) which i think is historically accurate (phil w/ the first death of an animal and grayson with the starvation of the first animal ig i headcanon it to be closer together than it probably is)
> 
> 3\. hmu with any questions about this universe
> 
> 4\. it took me 10 tries to spell smudged correctly despite knowing exactly how it's supposed to be spelt and i ended up just replacing it with unreadable :|
> 
> 5\. strikethrough is narrator thoughts :)
> 
> also should i make a discord server would anyone join i want friends :( i'd post like spoilers and shit (maybe probably just bc i'm not a particularly prolific writer LMAO and wouldn't want to keep ppl waiting for thaat long?? idk) and it'd be a cool place to ~hang out~


End file.
